I was wondering if anybody had any experiences applying to outside scholarships (that don't come from the government or the school itself). I applied to a few when I was an undergrad and received a small amount of money. Has anyone been fairly successful (let's say, received over $3000 for a school year) applying to these outside scholarships for law school? It seems like a lot of hassle (a lot of essay writing, recommendation letters, etc.), and I was wondering if it's worth it to dedicate a significant amount of time to this. Also, I'm a little wary of scholarships given out by firms that require the winner to commit to working at the firm their first summer. Is this generally a good idea?

I'm not really sure what you mean by 'outside scholarships' but I'm assuming ones that can be awarded to anyone regardless of what school you go to?

There are actually scholarship lists that can be found pretty much anywhere online.

Discusawards.com has quite a few - my best friend actually ended up winning the Big Dig Scholarship (she was a high school senior, so she wasn't obviously part of any college program yet).

With that said, I would look at scholarships that don't require you to be in College yet, as obviously they won't care what college you go to if you're not in college yet, so applying for scholarships aimed at high school students, seniors, juniors, etc - will fit the bill and are actually much easier to win.

While most schools have private scholarships, they tend to be harder to win, even though there are less applicants - at least that's what I've found to be the case.

Just apply to as many as you can, they are free to apply to - and if they are not, stay away!

My friend (see above) nearly got her entire tuition paid for by applying to scholarships, no matter how silly the requirements!!

How does that apply to law school? I'm genuinely curious to see if there are outside scholarships, i.e. scholarships that are not merit aid from the school you get into, that can help me pay for law school. Passing up lots of merit aid to go to a higher ranked school and feelin pretttttty shitty about debt.

These scholarships are almost exclusively diversity scholarships. If you are not "diverse", no one wants to give you money to go become a lawyer.

Oregon has an online system where you can fill out a profile and apply for as many scholarships as you qualify for at once, from a list. Perhaps other states have similar programs?Oregon's program: http://www.getcollegefunds.org/scholarships.aspx

A lot of them, obviously, are diversity-based, but there are a lot of other criteria:grads of certain high schoolsheading to certain collegescertain majorsmembers of organizations (I applied for one for members of the union I currently am a member of)gender/religion/orientation/socioeconomic status/etc.veterans/family of vets

Basically it's kind of like Fastweb and other commercial sites, except they don't try to sell you online degrees and the scholarships are real, not sweepstakes and contests.

I've done research on this as well. Though there are not many, there are some out there. A lot target regions, so check with your local and state bar associations and other regional scholarships, as these are likely your best chance. I haven't seen many for substantial amounts of money, but I'm applying to a ton - it adds up and lowers loans!